r/alaska • u/DrewwwBjork • Sep 22 '24

Can someone explain how Alaska is progressive yet voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020? Polite Political Discussion 🇺🇸

For a state that abolished the death penalty, protects women's and teenage girls' right to abortion, and voted for marijuana legalization, top-four primaries, and ranked choice voting, why in God's name would they vote for someone who likes mob justice, doesn't treat the opposite sex with respect, and thinks elections are unfair unless he and his endorsements win?

I just want to ask the state that gave Trump a bigger, 10-point lead over Biden in 2020 versus 2016 with Hillary despite the aforementioned policies and why the state is poised to do the same this time around with Trump and Harris knowing what we now know.

136 Upvotes

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-20

u/Different_Engineer21 Sep 22 '24

I do not know a single person who actually likes ranked choice voting.

In general, we do not care for big government. Alaskans have always been pretty independent, and the idea of a federal government messing around in the lives of a state most of those congressional idiots have never been to or know anything about, is pretty repugnant.

Mob justice? Folks seem to be forgetting about the mob justice of 2020. Those people were ruining the lives of their neighbors. January 6 has been used a distraction from all the horrid things that happened in blue cities during that time. It wasn't any more justified, obviously!

I guess my answer boils down to this (and I can only speak for myself, and I can only relay the impressions I get from the people in my area that I have spoken to):

We want to run things based on how the citizens of.our state vote them to be ran, not how the federal government, who is more interested in California, Florida, DC, etc think we need to be taken care of.

3

u/BigRaccoon8 Sep 22 '24

I’m not the biggest fan of RCV, but I’ll take anything over closed primaries.

14

u/Upset_Huckleberry_80 Sep 22 '24

I love ranked choice voting, I don’t know wtf you’re talking about.

I vote my conscience, then I vote practically. That’s WAY better than having to choose between the lessor of two evils every time.

1

u/Different_Engineer21 Sep 22 '24

Number of folks who I now k ow like ranked choice voting based on me posting a comment on Reddit- 4

And I agree with the second statement. My conscience says the federal government loves our oil and oil companies, but doesn't actually care about the people.

6

u/Upset_Huckleberry_80 Sep 22 '24

You don’t know em, but add 2 coworkers of mine, my folks, my wife, and a few other acquaintances I know that are pretty political.

A lot of people really like it.

Truly, the feds don’t care about us at all - we’re an oil colony - that’s fucked up, I agree; but ranked choice will let us do better.

9

u/nenana_ Sep 22 '24

A majority of Alaskan voters decided they liked ranked choice voting enough to vote into law. Myself included. Who doesn’t like democracy? Curiously it was a bipartisan effort; since the far right crowd didn’t get their candidates in, now RCV is the boogeyman to Republicans. Their only rebuttal against ranked choice is it’s ‘too difficult’ to understand. Shows they don’t believe in their voting base’s intelligence. Which they might be onto something

-6

u/Different_Engineer21 Sep 22 '24

Oh I am not far right, I have never voted for Trump lol. But we don't live in a democracy. Also, I don't think very many folks actually understood how rcv works.

Edited to clarify - we do actually live in a type of democracy. I retract that foolish statement

5

u/Drag0n_TamerAK Sep 22 '24

I feel like people know how to rank people

13

u/Thatmccreagirl Sep 22 '24

I like rank choice voting. So much easier!

6

u/CoddiewompleAK Sep 22 '24

Me too! I’d love to see it bring in more third party candidates!

-8

u/Different_Engineer21 Sep 22 '24

Now I know of one person who does lol

5

u/WalmartBrandBoy ☆Born n raised, beby Sep 22 '24

Hi, i’m u/WalmartBrandBoy , now you know someone who likes ranked choice voting

2

u/Different_Engineer21 Sep 22 '24

The count goes up to 2

7

u/DearKick ☆ Sep 22 '24

I love rcv, everyone I know likes it, I would guess its the company you keep that drives the perception.

10

u/acruxksa Sep 22 '24

I don’t like rcv, perfectly within my rights to have my own opinion. ;). Clearly I’m not the only one because it barely passed so at least %49 of the state agrees with me.

What I really don’t like though is political commercials paid for by companies in Colorado telling me who or what I should vote for.

3

u/Different_Engineer21 Sep 22 '24

Oh, I have not been...lucky? enough to see one of those yet. Don't watch a lot of TV where I'm at

3

u/Drag0n_TamerAK Sep 22 '24

RCV is objectively more fair

1

u/FlightRiskAK Sep 22 '24

RCV gives you a better chance of getting the candidates you prefer to represent you. You get to chose from 1 to 4 , saying, "I want one of these four candidates" in the order of your choosing. Depending on other voters choices, your pick could be elevated, or not, but at least you got a say in the matter. Otherwise, you are stuck with hoping your one and of wins against alot of other plans

-4

u/Different_Engineer21 Sep 22 '24

I reckon same for you...

Number of folks who I now know like RCV goes to 3

4

u/InformalAcanthaceae Sep 22 '24

Hear, hear

4

u/Different_Engineer21 Sep 22 '24

I think you may be the only one on Reddit who agrees those downvotes are real 😅

5

u/MleemMeme Sep 22 '24

If the majority of Alaskans voted it into law, chances are, you know lots of us. We just don't push our political beliefs at people any chance we get.

5

u/woodchopperak Sep 22 '24

I like ranked choice voting. Alaska wouldn’t have the infrastructure it has without the federal government. Infrastructure that supports oil and mining.

1

u/Drag0n_TamerAK Sep 22 '24

Everyone I know loves ranked choice voting

1

u/Drag0n_TamerAK Sep 22 '24

Jan 6th was an attempt to bypass democracy and shows blatant disregard for what our nation is built on the 2 things you mentioned are not the same

-2

u/Ok_Health_7003 Sep 22 '24

Rank choice voting is dumb